“The lower shelf may be unstable,” he says.
“Thank you.”
His eyes flick back to me.
“What?” I ask.
“You wanted the warning.”
“I wanted information,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Those are different things.”
“I agree.”
“And yet here we are, learning.”
He turns away before his mouth can do the almost thing, but I notice. I notice everything, and it is disgusting.
He moves through the narrow throat first, shoulders turned, wings folded so tight the edges scrape stone. I follow close enough that if he stops, I’ll walk into him. I should leave more room, but I don’t.
The passage drops by half a body length, broken into two shelves. Kavor tests the first with one clawed foot, then shifts left. He does not reach back at first. Then he does. One hand angled behind him, palm open.
It’s an offer, not a command. Still, my chest locks around something hot and frightened.
“I can step down,” I say.
“I know.”
“Then why is your hand there?”
“In case the shelf breaks.”
“If the shelf breaks, your hand won’t change gravity.”
“It may change where you land.”
I stare at his hand. Broad. Clawed. Steady. Cool when he touched my skin. Careful when he cleaned blood. Dangerous when red edged his eyes.
A hand I have already trusted. A hand I do not want to need.
The sample pulses under his arm. Soft blue. Traitor. I step down without taking his hand. The shelf holds.
I look at him as if that proves something. He lowers his hand. No argument. That should satisfy me. It doesn’t.
We continue.
The tunnel slopes deeper. The air grows cooler, threaded with old mineral and the faint bitterness of dried zemlja leavings. Nothing here is safe, but the heat is behind us, trapped above sand and open stone. Down here, shadows have weight. Sound returns in pieces.
My footsteps. His footsteps. A distant crack. The faint rasp of his wing edge brushing stone. My pulse in my injured arm. The sample. I hate that I can feel the sample.
Not with my fingers. Something in my blood seems to know it is there. A pressure. A pull. A little blue thought moving beside me.
I don’t tell Kavor, obviously. He already watches me like I am an unstable tunnel with nice eyes. No. Absolutely not. I did not think nice.
The passage widens into a long chamber crossed with old cut grooves. The channels run along the floor, then up one wall, disappearing beneath mineral crust. Some are dead gray. Some black. None glow.
